Willcox Inn out to make history in Million

Trainer believes he can become only locally based thoroughbred to win race in its history

August 18, 2012|By Neil Milbert, Special to the Tribune

Mike Stidham is asking Willcox Inn to do something in Saturday's Arlington Million that no other Chicago-based horse has done.

If the trainer's 12-1 shot outruns his 10 opponents he will become the first Chicago-based winner in the 30-year history of the multi-national race. The best performance of a summer resident of Arlington Park is Evanescent's second place for trainer Lou Goldfine in the 1993 race Star of Cozzene won.

Willcox Inn is joined by two other homebodies in the 11-horse field but the credentials of Vertiformer (20-1) and Cherokee Lord (30-1) are nowhere near comparable.

The 4-year-old colt has won five of his 11 races with his biggest conquests coming in compelling style in the Grade II American Derby and the Grade III Hawthorne Derby. On the Arlington turf course he is 3-for-4 after winning his only start of the year, an $80,000 optional claiming race on July 22.

"From his 3-year-old to 4-year-old year he has come a long way, physically and mentally," Stidham said. "He has established himself as a graded stakes horse. We hope he takes the next step in Grade I company."

There is a shortage of top drawer talent in this year's field. The highlights on the past performance sheet of 4-1 favorite Boisterous are a Grade II victory and two Grade III triumphs. The local Million prep, the Grade III Arlington Handicap, never has produced a Million winner and in the July 14 renewal Boisterous lost by a neck to Rahystrada, fourth in the Million in 2010, fifth last year and 8-1 on Saturday's morning line.

"He'll be a factor," predicted Boisterous' Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey. "A little bit of give in the ground would help. When it's hard he doesn't have quite the same kick."

Front-runner Little Mike has the most impressive credentials of the six U.S. representatives — a victory in the Grade I Turf Classic at Churchill Downs in May and three Grade III Gulfstream triumphs last year — but is untested at the Million's 11/4-mile distance.

No problem, according to Carlo Vaccarezza, breeder and co-owner of the 5-year-old gelding who outran four Grade I winners in the Turf Classic.

"This horse has deadly speed," Vaccarezza said. "You want to run with him at the beginning of the race you will have nothing left. If he gets the right fractions and gets on the lead no horse is going to catch him.

"But we have no idea about the European horses. In Europe, the fields are different, the surface is different, the courses are different. You have no idea which horse from Europe will run big. You can run into a freak; that Italian horse (5-1 second choice Crackerjack King, victorious in all seven of his races in Italy) might be a freak.

"It's a huge question mark. That's why the Arlington Million is one of the toughest and most intriguing races in America."

Aidan O'Brien and Jamie Spencer, the trainer/jockey team from Ireland that took the 2011 Million with Cape Blanco, will try for an encore with Treasure Beach (6-1), winner of the Grade I Secretariat Stakes for 3-year-olds on Million day last year.

English trainer John Gosden and jockey William Buick, who went to the winner's circle with Debussy in 2010, are in the mix with Colombian (8-1).

Another noteworthy English trainer/jockey combo is Luca Cumani and Kieren Fallon with Afsare (6-1). Cumani sent out Tolomeo to upset John Henry in the 1981 Million and Fallon was aboard Powerscourt when he won the 2005 race for O'Brien.

Gosden and Buick also have 9-2 third choice Joviality going for them in Saturday's Grade I Beverly D. for fillies and mares. Marketing Mix, winner of two straight Grade II races in Canada for former Chicagoan Leonard Lavin's Glen Hill Farm, is the 3-1 favorite and Aruna, who has annexed graded stakes at Churchill Downs, Colonial Downs, Keeneland and Belmont, is the 7-2 second choice.

The other major race on the Million day card is the inaugural running of the $400,000, 111/16-mile American St. Leger. Jakkalberry, a transplanted Italian campaigner who comes from the yard of Crackerjack King's trainer Marco Botti in England, is the heavy favorite at 9-5.

"Jakkalberry has run in Hong Kong, Dubai and England (in the last eight months)," Lucie Botti, Marco's wife and assistant trainer, said. "He is now a horse of the world."